Proteas' fitness on track

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Pretoria - Proteas fitness and conditioning coach, Greg King, is "very happy" with the results from the fitness and assessment camp held at the Centre of Excellence in Pretoria.

King says the various tests have given the management a good indication of "where the players are at" from a fitness point of view, ahead of the new season which includes a challenging tour to Sri Lanka next month.

"We have these tests every year at the beginning of the season to give us a good idea of the fitness levels and medical conditioning of the players ahead of the season," King said at the conclusion of the two-day camp on Thursday.

"It was also important for us to get standardized targets of the players in the system, which makes it easier to work from during the season.

"I'm very happy with the results," King continued.

"The guys put in a lot of work during the IPL which has shown.

"Luckily I was over there with them so I was able to monitor them and to do a few assessments with the squad members.

"The last two days have worked out well for us and we are on good track.

"Acclimatizing to conditions in Sri Lanka will be a challenge," he said of the heat on the sub-continent.

"It's probably going to be one of the big areas that we are going to struggle with given the current conditions in South Africa, so we need to try and get the guys as fit as possible and make sure that they are well prepared before we get there."

The players were put through their paces during an intensive schedule which included; yo-yo tests, muscoskeletal screening (physical), skinfolds testing and general conditioning.

Another encouraging sign for the Proteas management is an injury-free squad, with Lonwabo Tsotsobe (ankle surgery) and Rory Kleinveldt (knee injury) making steady progress from their respective injuries.

"We are under no illusion that it's a long season, the guys play cricket for almost 11 months of the year," Proteas Team Manager, Mohammed Moosajee said

"It is important for us to find the balance of managing workloads of the IPL players and the players going into a new season.

"Fortunately we've had a clean bill of health," he added.

"Lonwabo has made a good recovery post-op and is on track to being fully fit ahead of the tour to Zimbabwe, while Rory should start bowling in the next few weeks and will most likely tour with the South Africa "A" squad to Australia in August."

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